Why has the reclusive Colonel Dijon called his rivalrous relations together? It's a mysterious re-union at his secluded mansion, deep in the bayous of Southern Louisiana!
It is the year 1925, and the roaring '20s are well underway. As Laura Bow, young college student, you've been invited to visit t...
Why has the reclusive Colonel Dijon called his rivalrous relations together? It's a mysterious re-union at his secluded mansion, deep in the bayous of Southern Louisiana!
It is the year 1925, and the roaring '20s are well underway. As Laura Bow, young college student, you've been invited to visit the Colonel's isolated estate. Watch as the Colonel announces his intention to bequeath his millions to all present!
Immediately, you sense greed and suspicion among the Colonel's relatives and associates. The air becomes thick with anger and betrayal. As the drama unfolds you must evade the dangers that await you everywhere, and expose the killer before he or she strikes again!
Explore the gloomy estate in an attempt to discover who is murdering the Colonel's guests, and why...
The Colonel's Bequest is very different from other Sierra adventures. Even though the interface is similar to it's contemporary Sierra games, it is played in a different way. First of all your goal is not to "open more screens", which often is the case in other Sierra games; the world is pretty much open from the start. Next to that the game is still linear, but it depends on where you are when time progresses what information cues you get. Getting this information is essence of the game. The whole story can unfold without you ever knowing what really happened. When finishing the game you are scored by how much you know about the characters, their backstories and their motives.
The first time I played it back in the day, I loved it very much so for how unique it was. The game is not without its flaws. Even though the information retrieval is the most important, you can never check what notes you took. There is also not enough feedback on when you notice something happening. One of the cues you get is that items move inside the house. Looking at these items will indicate that you notice they have moved, but it does not give you a signal that it was a good action to perform.
The other complaint I have is that the world is pretty big. Most time (especially in the end, when there are very few characters left) you are just wandering around, hoping to progress time and end the game. This is not fun to do but unavoidable in this game play.
If you like mysteries, detective or adventure games, this is the game for you. It is way better than it's sequel, and when playing it alone in the dark it can actually be frighting at times because of random weird death scenes and the total lack of music. The atmosphere of the game is great--in part because it taps into a setting and era that is woefully underused in adventure games. This game is worth every last cent.
Very different from typical Sierra games of this era. For example, there aren't any typical dead ends in this game (forget to pick up an item at the beginning of the game and you are unable to finish it 70% of the way). You can even finish the game without ever achieving the main goal or solving any puzzles! This is because time keeps advancing constantly and you can only do so much when you're still green. It does make the game feel a bit "rushed" and unchallenging though.
But let's back up a little. You're Laura Bow, a 20-something journalist come to see what the hubbub is in this weird mansion. Turns out the owner is dying and leaving his earthly belongings to his family to enjoy after he dies. Terrible murder after another starts happening and it's up to you to stay alive long enough to figure out what's going on. You interrogate people, observe daily events and peoples' relationships and solve puzzles to (hopefully) find the murderer and survive. As mentioned before, I think it's amazing for a game this old to have a living world in a sense that the characters do their own daily routines and things and have personalities and relationships. To follow the plot you have to witness key conversations and events and do some snooping and light puzzle solving. The clock keeps ticking, and every day is divided into segments where all key events happen within a certain segment, so you have to be quick and smart to stay alive and ultimately, find out who the killer is!
Your interaction with the game world is done by text parser the same way as in the first Quest For Glory game (EGA version): LOOK WINDOW, TAKE LETTER, TALK BUTLER and so on. Be careful though, being caught snooping is never pleasant, and some actions can even have fatal consequences! You live and learn, and your first playthrough will probably leave a lot of mysteries unsolved. Keep replaying, and the threads will slowly unravel and you'll learn more about the guests that share the mansion with you.
This is a different kind of adventure game. Instead of solving puzzles and helping people and being a hero, all you do is wander around and observe. The objective is to uncover as much of the story as possible. This involves talking to people and overhearing conversations.
I am not a fan of this game design. You don't get to have any fun until the very end of the game. Just observing things isn't much fun. Also you have to talk to everybody about everything and everyone and you have to do it multiple times during the game because thing change. That is a pain in the neck.
The secret passages are very poorly hinted at, and yet if you don't find them this won't be much of a game.
It actually is possible to beat the game by just waiting around and doing absolutely nothing until the every end. Granted you won't get a very good score, but if you don't care about the score that is an option. You can even sit around and do absolutely nothing and just wait for the game to end. This will give you the bad ending, but the bad ending isn't actually all that bad.
On top of that this game has the most ludicrous deaths ever. Sierra game are known for killing you for anything and everything, and this game is the most guilty of that of them all.
2 stars because music and artwork are great for the time and the story is really good if you can uncover it. But the most important thing about a game is how much fun it is to play, and that's where this game fails big time. But that's a trend in Roberta Williams games. She's a great storywriter and a great artist, but not a good game designer.
The Colonel's Bequest wears its murder mystery inspirations on its sleeve. This is a 'murder mystery in a mansion' that plays it fairly straight as an homage to the works of Agatha Christie most prominently. The heroine detective, the time period, and the menagerie of possible suspects are all very reminiscent of the trappings you might find in a Christie novel. I also detected some Nancy Drew DNA running through The Colonel's Bequest insofar as the protagonist is a young 'all American girl' out doin' detective stuff. Finally there's a pretty strong Clue (the board game) vibe running through the whole thing. I mean the titular Colonel in The Colonel's Bequest is Colonel [i]Dijon[/i], an obvious riff on the Colonel [i]Mustard[/i] character from Clue. I'd go so far as to say that most of the characters in Clue have similar allegories to characters in The Colonel's Bequest. I suppose this makes sense due to the fact that Clue was similarly inspired by an Agatha Christie 'murder mystery in a mansion' framework, but it's slightly problematic in terms of The Colonel's Bequest. It muddies the waters in terms of inspiration and makes the game feel a bit uninspired and dare I say … derivative. It would be like forming a Led Zeppelin cover band in which a large part of the inspiration was drawn from … an earlier Led Zeppelin cover band. If you're looking for a thought provoking or even subversive take on the classic murder mystery formula, you won't find that here. If you're looking for a fun Sierra styled adventure romp through bog standard genre tropes, you're in luck.
Like most Sierra games from this era, The Colonel's Bequest utilizes a familiar combination of text parser plus point & click interface. The text parser is required for most contextual actions in the game as well as all conversational dialogue, but the mouse can be used for navigation and cursory inspection of most objects. I'll be honest, text parser games live or die based on the sophistication of the parser itself. An overly strict parser rapidly devolves into a meta-game of searching for the [i]exact[/i] necessary wording to carry out your desired actions. Luckily The Colonel's Bequest is fairly lenient in this regard. I did encounter a couple of situations in which the parser suddenly wanted more precise wording (i.e. 'put key in control' worked whereas 'use key on control' did not), but for the most part those situations were notable only for their infrequency.
I've made mention of the characters being slightly derivative, but it's worth pointing out the ways in which they make the game unique. Based on my experience I'd say that The Colonel's Bequest contains more dialogue than the large majority of the Sierra library. Exploring a myriad of conversational choices with each character often reveals interesting interrelations between characters. I [i]suspect[/i] that many of these conversations are merely decorative in terms end-game completion percentage, but they definitely add a richness of texture to the plot and characterization. Roberta Williams has always had a knack for well written flavor text, and The Colonel's Bequest is no exception in this regard.
Despite some interesting ways in which The Colonel's Bequest differentiates itself from other games in the Sierra playbook, there were only a few moments in which I felt like it captured the same magic as other widely heralded Sierra classics. Its use of secret passages as a means of spying on other characters in the house is rather inspired, and although the puzzles are somewhat scarce they're still quite satisfying. [i]Still[/i] ... I'm not sure that The Colonel's Bequest ever quite rises to the high water mark found in the best of the Quest for Glory or King's Quest series. All the same, a middling Sierra game means that it's still better than most adventure games from this time period. I'd definitely recommend The Colonel's Bequest for murder mystery buffs or players seeking to explore the entirety of the Sierra catalog. Apprentice adventure gamers might be better advised exploring the classics before investigating the darkened corners of the Colonel's estate.
That line from Rocky Horror best sums up this game. It could've been easily named Voyeur Quest(if the name didn't have a naughty co-notation) because that's basically what you are. A fly on the wall, observing what is going on around you. It's pure fun and if you remember that the game is supposed to be a play in structure, you'll have a lot of fun with it. You are not just the protagonist, but also the audience watching the play, hence why there's little more than observing scenes throughout the game. Once I saw that's what they were going for, I dug it. it's one of my favorite games from Sierra and am happy to see it finally released. A couple of things:
1 you can do more than just watch scenes, there's a sub quest where you go looking for a treasure. Keep your eyes open and ask around. That's all I'll tell you, this is not a walk-through.
2 Time passes when you go to a certain area at different points in the act. Save your game at the beginning of each act.
Remember, the game is done like a play, you're an active audience, don't look at it as a standard Sierra adventure game.
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